Revitalizing Rural Health: The Power of Digital Health

At-a-Glance: Rural Health Transformation Program Structure

🗓️ Timeline: FY26-FY30 (5 years), with NOFO released mid-September; apps close early November; awards by December 31, 2025.

👤 Eligibility: 50 U.S. States only (DC & Territories not eligible)

💰 Funding: $50B total ($108/year). 50% split equally among approved states; 50% allocated by CMS based on rural need factors.

🗺️ Digital Health: A New Blueprint for Rural Health

Versatile, evidence-based, and technologically advanced, today’s digital health tools go far beyond simple video call visits. Beyond connecting the underserved to care, digital health unleashes a paradigm shift. Healthcare transitions from a disconnected series of episodic visits to a continuous and collaboratively managed journey that addresses patient needs across the continuum of care.

❇️ Our Digital Health Solutions

Which of Our Products Can Help?
ClinicalAccess® Pro Connect
ClinicalAccess® Pro
WallDoc®
ClinicalAccess® Kiosk
eMDR® (eNcounter Medical Data Router)
Transportable Exam Backpack
Transportable Exam Station
Mobile Medical Response Unit
eNcounter®
AI Healthcare Solutions


Direct-to-Patient Software:
eNcounter connects patients in rural homes directly to appropriate providers, overcoming distance and transportation barriers. This meets patients where they are and gives them the ability to schedule appointments, fill out documents, pay for services, and review their care history all in one simple to use platform. 

🏥 Reducing Hospital Closures

• Virtual Specialty Access
  Using eNcounter to enable rural hospitals and clinics to offer cardiology, dermatology, behavioral health, and other specialties remotely, facilities can keep patient volume (and reimbursement) local.
  
  
• Emergency Response & Rapid Deployment
  The Mobile Medical Response Unit allows hospitals to expand service lines without costly brick-and-mortar expansions. Allowing you to serve more patients, even when far from your facility.
  
  
• Revenue Retention
  Telehealth reduces patient leakage to urban centers, keeping revenue streams in rural hospitals.

💪 Strengthening Primary, Speciality, and Behavioral Health Delivery

• 55+ Modalities
  GlobalMed capabilities are specialized and diverse, with  55+ modalities like ophthalmology, audiology, dental, cardiology, and behavioral health, just to name a few.
  
  
• Primary Care
  Integrated stethoscopes, ECG, ultrasound, and exam cameras allow rural clinicians to conduct comprehensive primary care exams virtually.
  
  
• Specialty Care
  Providers can remotely deliver consults and diagnostic reviews through GlobalMed’s interoperable software.
  
  
• Behavioral Health
  Self-service kiosks and secure video consults expand access to mental health services. Use voice-based AI screening tools to better detect levels of depression and anxiety.
  
  
• Behavioral Health & Wellness Applications
  Our wellness apps—MoodHacker®, LoveEveryDay®, and FamilyHuddle®—deliver a full spectrum of mental health support, strengthening relationships and helping reduce anxiety and depression.

📈 Improving Chronic Disease Management

• eNcounter
  Our eNcounter direct-to-patient software enables chronic disease management programs through scheduled & on demand telehealth visits with specialty providers.

• Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM)
  Sensors that, when placed in the patient’s home, collect key vitals data that is transmitted back to providers as part of a seamless prevention programs and early intervention.
  
  
• Remote Therapeutic Monitoring (RTM)
  We provide RTM software that turns a patient’s phone into a 24/7 motion lab, using motion and gait analysis to determine risks, thus preventing future ER visits due to falls or other conditions.
  
  
• Digital Health Stations
  ClinicalAccess Kiosk, WallDoc, ClinicalAccess Pro Connect, transportable stations or any of our other digital health stations, patients can access preventative screenings and follow-up care.

👨‍🏭 Supporting Care Coordination & Workforce Retention

• Interoperability (HL7, FHIR)
  Seamless integration into EMRs via eMDR ensures rural clinicians aren’t burdened by duplicate work.
  
  
• Hub-and-Spoke Models
  Rural clinics can be connected to main hubs, enabling coordinated referrals and shared care plans. Our software and hardware allows for evidence and clinical data to be captured and shared with specialists that are not always available in the rural settings. This reduces the need for transportation and costs associated with patients traveling for care. 
  
  
• Provider Support & Training
  Remote preceptorship and virtual supervision help reduce burnout and give rural providers access to peer support and mentorship, improving retention.
  
  

👨‍💻 Deploying Sustainable, Tech-Enabled Models

• Scalable Platforms
  eNcounter is cloud-based, supporting consumption based or license based models, aligned with value-based care incentives.

• Hardware Durability
  Durable steel kiosks, rugged kits, wall-mounted units, and our Mobile Medical Response Unit are designed for long-term use with minimal maintenance.
  
  
• Mobile Medical Response Unit
  Deployable asset for routine care, surge events, and disasters—maximizing utilization and ROI. Outfitted with evidence-based telehealth software and point-of-care devices capture clinical data instantly.
  
  
• Flexible Business Models
  License based, Per Member Per Month, or consumption-based pricing align with rural budget constraints and sustainability needs.
  
  
• Proven Federal Deployments
  Track record with VA, DoD, ICE, FQHC, IHS, and BOP proves sustainability at scale.

💰 Cost Savings

Digital health can reduce administrative overhead and reliance on locum tenens staff while optimizing resource utilization.

In-person and ED visits are reduced; patient revenue increases through downstream in-network referrals to lab, pharmacy, and other services.

👨‍⚕️ Solving Staff Shortages

Even hospitals that have difficulty recruiting – or affording – full-time specialists can help their patients access specialty care in teleneurology, telecardiology, behavioral health, and other clinical disciplines.

Bringing in remote physicians for overnight coverage or clinical support for on-site advanced practice providers can lighten provider burnout, increase provider efficiency, and improve staff retention as well.

📈 Chronic Disease Management

Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) can save lives in rural communities, which suffer from higher rates of diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Remote Therapeutic Monitoring (RTM) allows clinicians to track patient gait and rehabilitation in real-time, catching issues before they become worse. Potential issues are detected earlier; preventive care is accelerated; complications and hospitalizations are reduced, while patterns over time can steer providers to adjust medications or offer lifestyle education when a patient’s glucose readings, weight, or blood pressure readings suggest it.

Traveling nurses equipped with transportable exam kits and point-of-care devices can chart patient data in seconds. They close gaps between visits—titrating meds, reinforcing education, and looping in specialists on the spot—so chronic conditions stay controlled without long trips to distant clinics.

🔍 Texas Tech brings Teledermatology to the Panhandle

Highlights: 

• Reduced appointment wait times from 1 year to 1 week
• Eliminated travel times by 4+ hours
• Increased skin cancer detection rates

The Texas Panhandle has some of the highest melanoma rates in the state. Skin cancer is common – but many towns are three or four hours away from the nearest dermatologist in Lubbock. Appointments must be booked up to a year in advance.

Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) created a teledermatology program using GlobalMed’s Transportable Exam Station, TotalExam® 3 camera, and other tools to connect rural towns to expert care. They have reduced appointment wait times from one year to one week, eliminated appointment travel times of four hours or more, and partnered with school districts to teach preventive care to children. They’ve also increased detection rates of skin cancer, alopecia and other conditions – and provided emergency interventions and admitted patients to hospitals for life-saving treatment.

🎧 The Veteran Administration Connects Veterans to Audiology and Behavioral Care

Bringing care to rural Veterans has long been a challenge for the VA. One young Veteran in North Dakota was diagnosed with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD), but his local Community Based Outpatient Clinic (CBOC) lacked behavioral health services. Instead, he was forced to drive hours to see his provider, something that could be dangerous in the brutal Great Plains winters. The VA’s National Telemental Health Center utilized GlobalMed solutions to connect Veterans to expert behavioral healthcare – and the Veteran was able to see a psychiatrist from his own VA Community Based Outpatient Clinic (CBOC).

At the same time, the VA launched a successful teleaudiology program. Tinnitus and hearing loss are the top two service-connected disabilities among Veterans, with more than 2.7 million currently receiving disability benefits for those conditions. Using GlobalMed solutions, Veterans can access self-administered hearing and speech tests, even when no audiologist is available in their area. An automated collection of diagnostic data and ear images is integrated into a single report, which is sent to an audiologist who might place an order for hearing aids or decide the Veteran needs further testing.

The VA now uses virtual care across many disciplines, saving an estimated $6,500 per patient by expanding care access and decreasing hospitalizations. They have reduced hospitalizations by 40% reduction for mental health patients, by 25-30% for heart failure and hypertension, and by 20% for diabetes and COPD – all adding up to considerable cost savings.

🏥 California Lowers Cost of Inmate Care

Highlights: 

• 30+ medical specialties
• Better provider coverage, retention, recruitment
• Savings topped $25 million in just 1 year

California Correctional Health Care Services (CCHCS) operates a state-run correctional managed care telemedicine program to provide better healthcare to inmates and reduce outside medical visits. Inmates remotely receive primary care and expertise in more than 30 medical specialties, including cardiology, dermatology, gastroenterology, HIV, infectious disease, nephrology, orthopedics, pulmonology, rheumatology, urology, and many more. Administrators have increased public safety, decreased medical transportation costs, improved staff retention and recruitment, and procured better coverage during provider military and maternity leave.

The program expanded from 16,000 virtual encounters in 2010 to more than 70,000 in 2018. They expanded specialist access from 30 specialists in 4 locations to 200 specialists in 22 locations by 2018. The result: in one year alone, their cost savings on healthcare and transportation costs topped $25 million.

🌵 Copper Queen brings Specialty Care to a Small Desert Town

Highlights: 

• More than $1.4 million in savings & revenue in the first 6 months
• 90% patient satisfaction scores

Bisbee’s Copper Queen Community Hospital is a 14-bed critical access hospital, 10 miles north of the Arizona-Mexico border. When they implemented GlobalMed solutions, they started with a telestroke program in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix. One patient was former Bisbee Mayor Jack Porte, who said Copper Queen’s telestroke service enabled him to walk within a few hours of a paralyzing ischemic event. The hospital has since added telecardiology, teleneurology, teleburn, telepediatrics, and other programs. The hospital’s teleconcussion program includes baseline studies of high school athletes so post-injury scans can be compared to diagnose concussions.

The program has saved the small hospital significant money, allowing them to keep their doors open. Because the hospital no longer has to transport patients with atrial fibrillation to hospitals in Phoenix or Tucson, their telecardiology program was able to generate more than $1.4 million in transportation savings and additional revenue in its first six months. The Copper Queen’s patient satisfaction scores: 90% among ER patients.

⛴️ Petrobas Reduced Costs & Expedites Care for Oil Rig Workers

Highlights: 

• Avoided $50K + helicopter evacuations 93% of the time
• Minimized risk for patient and flight crew
• Higher worker productivity

On offshore oil rigs, illness and injury are expensive business. Typically, a worker must be flown to the mainland or a provider transported to the oil rig – both costly endeavors that delay care. Brazilian petroleum giant Petrobras solved this problem by collaborating with Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, a teaching hospital in Sao Paolo, to provide remote care to workers on five production platforms. GlobalMed solutions send live diagnostic data to providers, helping workers receive faster care without an expensive air evacuation. Staff see more patients and increase billable services without increasing overhead, while Petrobras has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in transportation costs.

In one year, the hospital conducted 965 telemedicine visits using GlobalMed solutions. The results were impressive: 93.2% of those visits led to patient discharge without an evacuation – and of those who did travel, 71.4% were able to take the less expensive non-urgent flights, minimizing risk for the patient and flight crew.

💵 Texas Corrections Saves over $780 Million on Prison Healthcare

Highlights: 

• Reduced outside inmate trips by 85%
• Saved the TDCJ $780 million over 14 years

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) operates more than 30 state prison facilities, most in remote areas. Using digital health, it collaborates with two of the state’s leading health sciences centers: Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) and the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) to control costs while providing quality care to inmates. Before deploying its virtual health program, few physicians were willing to see inmates in person, due to security risks and isolated prison locations. Yet many inmates enter prison with chronic health conditions, while longer sentences have created an aging population who need extensive services. Transporting inmates out of the prison presents considerable security risks and expense.

Through digital health, TDCJ has reduced unnecessary medical tests and transfers to outside medical facilities, boosted preventive care, and successfully identified offenders who fake an illness or injury. 85% of Texas inmates stayed at the prison for their healthcare consultation, saving the TDCJ $780 million over 14 years.

GlobalMed: Connecting the Underserved to Quality Care

With over two decades of experience in building and deploying digital health solutions, GlobalMed has facilitated over 60 million virtual visits in more than 60 countries. We’ve partnered with the Veterans Health Administration, the Defense Health Agency, the Bureau of Prisons, the Florida Department of Health, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and others to deploy powerful and cost-effective digital health programs throughout the continental United States. From Great Plains farming communities to Native American reservations to Veterans’ hospitals, GlobalMed has solved rural health problems for more than 23 years.

With a fully integrated platform that combines software, hardware, and data-capturing devices, GlobalMed unlocks evidence-based digital health for any location - and we meet two commitments in every engagement.

🎨 We Customize Our Solutions to Fit Your Needs

Our all-in-one platform is modular and flexible, scaling easily to fit into any health setting or program. After GlobalMed assesses a partner’s clinical and operational needs, we design specific solutions that are as customized and individualized as the client requests. Teams can start small and build their digital health program over time, tailoring it to their facility needs and expanding as their needs evolve.

⚙️ We Support You from Strategy to System Integration to Long-Term Success

To ensure smooth rollout and adoption, we provide white-glove training on both technological proficiency and integration into existing workflows. We support our partners through every step of their digital health journey, with trained staff available to troubleshoot any problems, to help them maximize the benefits of our solutions and implementation.

🌟 The GlobalMed Advantage—Access to Quality Care, Anytime, Anywhere

• Accelerated Delivery of Care
  Connect remote patients to the right clinician fast with patient-directed triage and AI symptom checking—so care starts sooner.
  
  
• Evidence-Based Care
  Our software and devices are purpose-built for evidence-based care, collecting and sharing the data providers need for diagnostic accuracy and powerful collaboration at the point of care.
  
  
• Rural Facility Support
  Data is the beating heart of the GlobalMed platform. Centralized records and analytics keep quality measures on track while our eNcounter software brings remote specialists into local consults—helps to keep patient care in the community, increasing revenue for small hospitals.
  
  
• Chronic Disease Interventions:
  Our remote monitoring capabilities have empirically reduced readmissions for post-operative patients and helped patients better manage their chronic conditions between physician visits, preventing complications and reducing hospitalizations.
  
  
• Clinical Versatility
  GlobalMed capabilities are specialized and diverse, with 55+ modalities—devices, stations, and software that help teams deliver evidence-based care and meet Joint Commission/CMS requirements.
  
  
• Patient Convenience
  Patients can receive care from their own home, erasing the need to travel for diagnosis or care. Patient-driven software can foster more personalized and proactive relationships between providers and patients, deepening trust and encouraging patients to adhere to treatment.
  
  
• Mobile Health
  Our modular solutions fit elegantly into mobile clinics and units, which can bring women’s health services, dermatology screenings, vaccinations, disaster zone care, and other care to rural and border communities. Other patients even receive primary and specialty care in their own home, thanks to our mobile diagnostic units.
  
  

📱 Advanced Digital Health Technology

• Connectivity on Demand
  Broadband and infrastructure challenges have limited other digital health deployments in rural areas - but GlobalMed solutions include robust broadband connectivity, ensuring quality and reliable uptime in virtual visits. Our solutions have delivered top-tier medical care across the Digital Divide, including Native tribes at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, farming communities without a nearby hospital, disaster zones, and battlefields.
  
  
• Interoperability with Health Information Technology (HIT) Systems
  Our applications and devices integrate with EHRs, practice management, and public-health networks via robust APIs, securely documenting and exchanging data.
  
  
• Federal-Grade Security
  SOC 2 and HIPAA compliant, GlobalMed has the Authority to Operate (ATO) on U.S. Department of Defense networks. Users can count on encrypted data transmission, secure connections, technical safeguards, stringent audit controls, and protocols for breach notification – a level of security that is critical for rural hospitals without a strong cyber defense program.
  
  
• AI Triage
   
  Our AI triage tools can connect patients to appropriate providers that determine the appropriate level of care needed – reducing non-critical visits (or revisits) to emergency rooms and accelerating chronic care interventions.
  
  
• Intuitive Interface, Ongoing Support
  Simple workflows, rapid deployment, full training, and ongoing white-glove support to ensure long-term success.
  

👩‍⚕️ Your Partner in Digital Health

As the Rural Health Transformation Program begins to fund and expand the scope of digital health programs, rural hospitals and patients face a promising new era in healthcare. From VA clinics to agricultural communities, rural Americans who were born into a region of health disparities now face an opportunity to receive consistent, quality care; states can lower their healthcare spending while improving outcomes for their most vulnerable citizens.

As the industry leader in digital health solutions for rural environments, GlobalMed offers a powerful and cost-effective path to this new era. By pairing cutting-edge technology with deep operational experience, our digital health partnerships can redefine rural health and create a future where distance is no longer a barrier to exceptional healthcare.

Let's build a future of healthier rural communities. Connect with us to learn how our strategic partnerships can bring exceptional digital health solutions to your state.

👋 About GlobalMed

The global leader in digital health, GlobalMed enables digital care across the world, bringing evidence-based healthcare to military installations, rural hospitals, underserved communities, and other remote areas. All-in-one software and hardware solutions empower providers to treat patients at any point on the continuum of care – lowering costs and improving patient outcomes from one platform. With over 60 million consults delivered in 60 countries, its platform provides the highest level of security in the industry. Founded in 2002 by a Marine Corps Reserve Veteran still serving as CEO, GlobalMed is proud to partner with Veterans Health Administration, Defense Health Agency, the Bureau of Prisons, and other agencies in the service of transforming rural healthcare across the United States.